Budziszewska Floria

Budziszewska, Floria During the war, Floria Budziszewska, a woman in her thirties, and her son, Marijan, who was 10, lived in the town of Żabinka (Kobryń County, Polesie District), which was captured by the Germans on the first day of their invasion of the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941. A police station was established in the town, under the command of a German officer named Edward, who hired Floria to work in the station. In the autumn of 1942, she overheard a conversation between an officer and one of his clerks about a boy who had been brought to the station on suspicion that he was a Jew. The officer was weighing the possibility of executing the boy. After the conversation, Floria, emboldened by her close relations with the officer, asked him to release the boy, whose name was Roman Levin, on the pretext that she needed help in her household. The officer agreed. Floria took Roman to her home, where he told her about his family before the war, about the horrors they had undergone in the ghetto, and about the murder of his mother and sister. Floria then took him up to the attic, where she introduced him to her friend, Sonia Fefer, who was Jewish and had been hiding there since the murder of the Jews of Żabinka. In contrast to Sonia, Roman lived in the house openly, like one of the family. He spent a great deal of time with Floria and her son, wore clean clothes, and on Sunday accompanied them to the local Catholic Church. When the front approached Żabinka, Edward left the police station and Floria fell victim to the revenge of one of the policemen, who did not like the influence she had exerted on his chief. Thus, a few days before the liberation Floria was arrested and thrown into the district prison in Brześć. In the course of her arrest, her son and the two Jewish fugitives fled the house. The boys learned afterward that Sonia was murdered that same day. Marijan and Roman walked many a mile until they encountered the advancing Red Army, and so survived. Floria was executed in Brześć two days before the liberation. Afterward, Roman became a writer and published books and poems in which he described his fate and the noble deeds of his rescuer, Floria Budziszewska. On November 16, 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Floria Budziszewska as Righteous Among the Nations.